Intel and Corsair host first official Haswell overclocking contest

Intel and Corsair are providing hardware and a $20,000 prize pot for the first official Haswell overclocking contest, taking place on Monday at Computex.

Intel and Corsair have confirmed that as-yet unannounced products of theirs will be taking centre-stage at Computex in Taipei next week as part of an overclocking event designed to see what can be done with Haswell processors.

Designed to showcase Intel's fourth-generation Haswell-based Core processor family as well as Corsair's as-yet unannounced matching range of overclocker-friendly DRAM modules, the Computex OC Main Event will see competitors from around the world compete for a share of a $20,000 cash prize pot - and the glory that comes with being the winner of the world's first official overclocking event for Intel's next-generation chips.

'We are excited to be hosting the premier overclocking event of Computex 2013 with our friends at Intel,' crowed Thi La, senior vice president and general manager Corsair's Memory and Enthusiast Component Products arm. 'Together we'll be unleashing the world's top overclockers for the first time on the latest Intel processors and our new line of Corsair memory. With the sheer level of overclocking talent and the capabilities of the new hardware, I anticipate seeing groundbreaking levels of performance.'

The competitors will be given Haswell-based processors, matching motherboards and sticks of Corsair's new memory - to be announced at the event - and will compete to see who can achieve the highest stable overclock. The event has attracted interest from overclockers across the globe, with 'names' including Coolice, Der8auer, Dinos22, lucky_noob, 8-Pack, Splave and Zzolio confirmed as attending.

Held in the Marquee Restaurant & Lounge in Taipei, the even is to be broadcast live by Overclocking-TV - but you'll have to get up early if you want to see the action as it happens: the event is scheduled to take place on Monday the 3rd of June at 1300-1800 local time, meaning it UK viewers will need to tune in at 0600 to catch the start of the event.

As well as the overclocking contest itself, Corsair and Intel will be using the event to push their respective products - no surprise there. The two companies have promised a PC-building master-class presentation - which will, doubtless, recommend the use of Intel processors and Corsair components for maximum performance - as well as a demonstration of the latest revision to Intel's Extreme Tuning Utility software.

As for the contest itself, there are multiple categories with the top prize of $5,000 going to the overclocker who manages the highest verified score on a SuperPi 32M run. $4,000 goes to the competitor with the highest verified DRAM frequency, and $3,000 to the highest CPU frequency. Each of these contests will be based on hardware supplied by Intel and Corsair at the event.